Creating Traditional Family Trees and Genealogy Reports

The process for generating a family tree or report should be similar for most genealogical software. RootsMagic Essentials is the software used here to demonstrate the process of creating reports. Before you can generate a report, you have to find the person who will be the focus of that report. Here’s a quick refresher on how to get to the appropriate person’s record:

Open RootsMagic Essentials and select the family file for which you want to generate a chart or report by highlighting the filename and clicking Open.

Usually, you can open your software by double-clicking the icon for that program or by choosing Start → Programs (or Start → All Programs) and selecting the particular program.

Highlight the name of the person who will serve as the focus for your report.

On the Pedigree tab, highlight the name of the focal person of the family you select. For example, if Matthew wants to generate a report for his ancestor Samuel Clayton Abell, he highlights the Samuel Abell file.

On the Reports menu, select a chart or report.

Some report types are not available in the RootsMagic Essentials version. You have to purchase the full product to generate them.

Select the content to include in the report.

You can choose whether to generate the report on the current family or only selected people. You can also choose what information to include (such as spouses and children, photos, and notes) in the output. And you can manipulate some formatting options, such as layout, title, fonts, and sources.

Click Generate Reports.

RootsMagic Essentials generates the report and displays it on your screen.